The whole of that day was spent by the wretched Ellen in a state of stupefaction. The misfortune which had befallen her was too great and too overwhelming to be completely comprehended. Her overstrained nerves could bear no more, and she sat in a state of comparative calmness. She expressed no wish to see her children, no desire for any thing, and Mrs. Allenham bade the maid remain in the adjoining apartment. She returned to the company herself, and informed them of her sister’s sudden indisposition. She tried, with all the tact of which she was mistress, to extract from Lady Coverdale whether Mr. Hamilton had ever been subject to starts of temper, but she elicited nothing from her, but a recapitulation of his virtues. CHAPTER VIII. We that did nothing study but the way To love each other, with which thoughts the day Rose with delight to us, and with them set, Must learn the cruel art how to forget. ——Like turtle doves Dislodged from their haunts, we must in tears Unwind a love knit up in many years. Now turn we each from each—so fare our hearts, As the divorced soul from its body parts. _The Surrender._ Mr. Hamilton had half succeeded in persuading himself the whole thing was a cunning forgery. The story seemed so improbable. No letter had ever arrived from Cresford—no Maitland had ever brought any intelligence of this attempt to escape. Colonel Eversham had seen him carried to the grave—the funeral had taken place at night, by Mr. Cresford’s dying request, he said. How unlikely, whatever might subsequently have been the difficulties of his situation, that if alive, he should really have allowed so much time to elapse without writing to the wife with whom he was so madly in love! These reflections all presented themselves to his mind, and by dinner-time he was able to take his accustomed seat, and to do the honours of his table with tolerable self-possession. Towards evening Mrs. Allenham was alarmed by a recurrence of Ellen’s faintness: it was immediately after her children had been brought in to wish her good night. Mrs. Allenham was urgent that a physician should be sent for. Ellen appeared to revive, to express her vehement desire that no one should be summoned. She only wished that her maid should sleep on a sofa in her room, in case she should be worse in the night. Mrs. Allenham thought Mr. Hamilton rather remiss in not sending for medical advice. “Mr. Allenham,” she thought, “though he does not make such a fuss about his love for me, would never let me be as ill as Ellen is, without sending for all the doctors in the neighbourhood; but different men have different ways, and one must take people as one finds them.” One thing, however, she resolved upon, that if Ellen was not better the next morning, she would speak her mind openly to Mr. Hamilton, and insist on his having the very best advice.